The World's Most Incredible Orphans
by Spindle Berry
Summary: Quite by chance, the NSA discovers a group of orphaned superkids who are subsequently apprenticed to adult superheroes. Important notice after new chapter.
1. The Little Pack

On the poor side of town, nestled among the sun-faded fronts of industrial buildings and crumbling walls of dusty apartment complexes, there was a grocery store. It was a small grocery store, privately owned, and kept open from eight to five every day except Sunday, on which it was closed.

This independent grocery store was frequented by Aisling Angelina Forrester, along with her entourage, the Little Pack. Aisling was only fifteen years old, but she lead her Pack with enormous efficiency, and the small group rarely wanted for anything, although they were, in the strict definition of the word, homeless. Aisling's charges were aged fourteen, ten, seven, and six years old, and despite the fundamental differences in their personalities, they all meshed together extremely well.

The owners of the small grocery store saw the Little Pack Monday through Saturday, and always at the exact same time, and the reason was known well to every person who worked in the store. In the very back, next to the meat counter, there was a sort of deli where people purchased hot, ready-made foods and took them away in styrofoam containers. Since it was rare for a majority of the food to be sold, and the proprietors didn't want to throw it out, they declared that all of the food from the deli counter would be free within fifteen minutes of the store's closing time. And so, Aisling brought her Pack to the little store every day, excepting Sunday, at four forty-five in the afternoon, and there they feasted.

On a certain Tuesday during the month of November, the winds outside were already laced with frost as the Little Pack filed into the grocery store. They smiled and greeted the employees as they entered, just as they always did, and strode to the back of the store. From various bags they produced mismatched plates, which they handed to the proprietor, who stood behind the deli counter in a white apron. He grinned behind his long mustache as he scooped generous amounts of lasagna and spinach onto the childrens' plates and handed them over. They thanked him one by one as they took their plates, and then they sat on the floor in a sort of circle. In warm weather they sat out on the curb, but the greasy sweaters and scruffy coats they wore over their ragged clothes offered scant protection from the wind, so they stayed inside on days like this one.

The five chewed and swallowed contentedly for a while, but after a time the fourteen-year-old, a dark-complexioned boy named Joaquin, turned to Aisling and said,

"Joey was following me today."

Aisling, as well as the others, was instantly alert. "Did he bother you at all?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

Joaquin shoveled some more lasagna into his mouth and shook his head as he chewed. He gulped hugely and said, "Nah, but he creeped me out a lot."

"How?" the seven-year-old girl, Vasilisa, asked Joaquin.

"Well. . ." Joaquin said as he moved his plate from his lap to the tile floor and crossed his arms over his chest, "While I was at the market, picking out the fruits, he kept popping up wherever I was. He would stand a few yards away, and stare at me. And, a few times, when I stared back at him, he would giggle and cover his mouth with his hand. It was kind of freaky."

Aisling wrinkled her forehead and pulled at a stray lock of her bedraggled hair, a sure sign that she was thinking. "It sounds like they're planning something."

"What do you think they'll do?" said the ten-year-old, looking frightened. He was called Patrick, but had gotten the nickname "Patches" because of the brown speckles that decorated his pale arms and face.

"Something nasty, probably. We'll have to be super careful on our way home." Aisling said.

The last child, the tiny girl who was alternately called Bella-Jane, Janie, and Bell-Bell, stayed silent and licked her plate clean. The rest of the assembly did the same. After their plates were as spotless as they could be made, considering their age and long usage, the five children replaced their plates and utensils in their respective bags, stood up and thanked the proprietor, then left the store in their customary order: Joaquin first, Vasilisa second, then Patrick, then Bella-Jane, and lastly Aisling.


	2. A Brief Scuffle

Disclaimer (which should be at the top of the first chapter but isn't because I forgot): If I ever claim to own _The Incredibles_, may my body be split into a thousand pieces and scattered around the globe. The five main characters are my creations and are completely fictional; any resemblance that they may bear to real people is purely coincidental.

NOTE – "Aisling" is pronounced "ash-ling" and "Joaquin" is pronounced "wa-keen"

After they left the grocery store, the Little Pack all wanted to go home, except for Aisling, who reminded them that they had to wash their plates. They walked in the direction of their home, but stopped on the way at a gas station that had a public restroom. The restroom had a filthy floor and smelled much too strongly of disinfectant, but it did have a relatively clean sink, a soap dispenser, and a roll of paper towels. In their customary order, the Pack went into the restroom, where they washed their plates and cutlery, as well as their hands for good measure. After Aisling came out, the sinking sun had reduced to a purplish glow, and the Pack headed home for the night. They said very little to one another, perhaps because their main concern was walking quickly in order to get out of the wind sooner. They trotted down many streets, all of them with varying types of buildings, but all of the equally shabby. Most of the storefronts boasted signs that were barely legible due to long sun exposure, and the there was hardly a foot of sidewalk that didn't have a crack in it, and there was hardly a crack that didn't have a dry, brown weed poking up from it.

Bella-Jane, the smallest of the girls, always looked at the ground when she walked. She also had the habit of adjusting her gait constantly so as to not step on any lines or cracks. She couldn't say why she did this, aside from the fact that a few scant years prior she had made the discovery that it was possible to walk without every stepping of the impurities of the pavement.

Aisling, who was behind Janie at the end of the line, slowly turned her head from side to side, always alert for any sources of danger that might threaten her charges. She never looked at the ground when she walked.

Patrick, who was in the middle of the procession and directly in front of Bell-Bell, never seemed to walk without his hands in his pockets. He neither looked at the ground nor at what lay straight in front of him, but somewhere in between.

Vasilisa, in her place ahead of Patrick, had a distinctive skip in her gait, which she accompanied with random tosses of her head that served to shake her long, coarse hair out of her eyes. As she tossed her head, she glanced all around, not looking for anything in particular, aside from things that might be unusual, which she rarely spotted.

Joaquin, who always headed the Pack's processions, would normally have cast his gaze straight ahead and walked with long, easy strides. Today, however, his experiences with Joey had put him on edge, and he held himself extremely stiffly and he walked with abrupt, clipped steps. He glanced back at Aisling. She also seemed to be on the alert, and Joaquin quickened his steps even more.

They continued in this manner until they were about three-quarters of their way home, when Joaquin turned into an alley only to find himself facing a very fat boy with a sickening grin on his pudgy face. Joaquin felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

"What do you want, Joey?" he asked, baring his teeth subconsciously. Joey opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a squeal from Aisling. Joaquin, Vasilisa, Patrick, and Bella-Jane all simultaneously whirled around to see Aisling locked in the grasp of a brawny teenage boy, older than Joey, and much more sinister-looking.

"Let go!" Bell-Bell shrieked, furious to see her caretaker being forcibly restrained. She sprang forward, intending to attack the boy who was three times her age, but was stopped by Patrick, who became even paler as he watched Aisling thrash helplessly. Joey laughed.

"Squeeze her, Boss, squeeze her!" he called, slapping his massive thighs.

Aisling curled her lips and let out an animalistic scream. "Let go of me, you barbarian!" This seemed to amuse her captor, and he grinned maliciously and released her. Aisling jumped back instantly and grabbed Janie from Patrick. She backed up very slowly, until she stood next to Vasilisa. She caught the younger girl's eye and nodded. Vasilisa understood the unspoken command, but Aisling didn't see if she had carried it out, because Kevin, the burly eighteen-year-old, chose that moment to attack the pale, trembling Patrick. Following his boss's example, Joey threw himself forward and tackled Joaquin. Joey had a royal bulk, but to Joaquin, he seemed to get heavier by the second. He struggled, quite in vain, to get free.

Near the mouth of the alley, Kevin had Patrick's small neck clasped between his hands, but as Kevin leered, he suddenly found himself holding a dog instead of a boy, and abandoned his grip in surprise.

"What the—?" before he could trace its movements, the dog was gone. Angered, he turned again to Aisling, who had Bell-Bell clutched against her chest. He could see the little girl's face, and noticed even in the growing dark that it had obtained an eerie pinkish coloring. Aisling was well aware of this, too, and whispered in her charge's ear,

"Grab his nose, okay?" Bella-Jane bobbed her bead.

What happened next was so quick that Kevin, Joaquin, and Joey barely saw it. In a springing step that covered an extraordinary distance, Aisling hurled herself and her small charge at Kevin. Surprised, he toppled backward, leaving himself vulnerable, and it was then that Bella-Jane obligingly grabbed the bully's nose. There was a moment of pause, and an absolute silence, and then Kevin screamed, swiping desperately at the tiny girl whose face was growing more flushed every moment. After a few satisfying seconds of listening to Kevin scream, Aisling jerked her dear little Janie away from the screeching bully, and agonized wails came to a stop when a new voice penetrated the scene:

"HALT!"

The entire assembly froze. A policemen, hand on holster, was standing at the mouth of the narrow alley. Lights had flicked on in the apartments above the alley and light was filtering down, so they could all see each other fairly clearly.

"What's going on here!" the policeman demanded, with his hand still on the holster at his waist.

Aisling blinked, and slowly pulled Bella-Jane upright. No one spoke.

Rivulets of sweat coursed down Aisling's face. Her instincts told her to escape with Bella-Jane, but a second instinct told her that she shouldn't abandon Joaquin, while a third instinct told her that Joaquin could protect himself, whereas Janie couldn't, and at the same time a fourth instinct was telling her to use Bell-Bell to shock Joey into getting off of Joaquin so that all three of them might escape. None of the instincts won over the others, so Aisling just stood paralyzed, holding both of Janie's hands. Still, the assembly remained silent. The policemen grew impatient.

"I said, 'What's going on here'!" he barked. Just then, Aisling's luck seemed to come alive—Joey heaved himself up, letting his victim stagger to his feet and draw a series of huge breaths. Joaquin's face was nearly purple and all of the veins on his neck were standing out because of the incredible force that had been pressing him into the ground. Then, to make the situation better, Kevin hoisted himself up and turned to face the policeman. Aisling knew that this was her chance. As quickly as the blink of an eye, she gathered Bell-Bell into her arms, pivoted on her toes, bent her knees, and jumped.

Aisling's jump took her clear over the wall at the back of the dank alley, and she bounced lightly when she hit the ground. In a motion so fast she barely stopped to think, she let go of Bell-Bell, sprang over the wall again, grabbed Joaquin around the chest, and thrust herself over the wall with the inhuman power of her legs. She fell more heavily the second time, and her head began to spin. The three heard the policeman shout on the other side of the wall, and the shout was followed by the booming sound of Joey's clumsy run. He must have shoved past the policeman, because they heard a single gun shot. No scream followed the shot, though, so Joey must have escaped somehow, perhaps down another alley. They heard rapid footfalls, the policeman chasing after Joey, they assumed, and then silence fell once again. Aisling looked up, and, just as she had expected, Kevin was clinging to the wall of the building, many stories up. He scuttled up the wall as expertly as an insect, hauled himself onto the roof, and was gone. Aisling and Joaquin both puffed sighs of relief.

"Come on, let's go home," Joaquin said, scooping Janie into his arms. Aisling nodded mutely. They began to trudge toward their home, staying wary, and keeping to the shadows.

Meanwhile, a certain policeman was driving back to the station, having given up chasing the fat teenage boy. He drove rather quickly, with his brow knitted. When he reached the station, he strode into the lamp-lit office and addressed the receptionist.

"Call up Rick Dicker," he said, sifting through the papers on his desk until he found what he was looking for. It was a newspaper, several weeks old, with a picture of a large-nosed, gray-haired man on the front. The central headline read, "**Young Supers in High Demand as Apprentices**". The policeman grinned in a self-satisfied way.


	3. Calling Rick Dicker

Back in the city of Metroville, a certain large-nosed, gray-haired government agent was finishing some paperwork regarding Spike, a superhero who had only recently been registered by the NSA. He was in the process of signing his name at the foot of yet another official-looking document when his phone rang. He looked up from his papers and picked up the receiver.

"This is Rick Dicker," he said. The person on the other line didn't respond immediately. Dicker heard some indistinct muttering—perhaps the phone was being handed over to someone besides the person who had dialed—and then someone with a very husky voice spoke began to speak.

"Is this Rick Dicker?" the husky voice asked.

"Yes it is. How can I help you?"

"Well, you see, I'm the head of the Clearwater, California police department, and one of my officers thinks he's found a person that you might be interested in meeting."

Dicker was surprised. "May I speak with the officer?"

"Yes, of course." There was a bit of mumbling as the phone was passed to the said officer.

"Hello," the new voice, a bit less husky than that of the police chief's, said, "A few weeks ago, I found an article in the national news saying that several adult superheroes had requested the privilege of training young superheroes, and that you were in charge of assigning them."

"That's true," Dicker said. "Do you have some young supers in your area that you think should be apprenticed?"

"Yes, that's why I called. You see, there's this group of kids that hang around my quarter of the city, and tonight, I saw one of them do something really strange."

Dicker's interest piqued. "Tell me about it."

"Well, there's not much to tell. I found five kids fighting in an alley, and when I confronted them, one of ran toward the back of the alley and jumped clear over the wall, which was at least ten feet high. And it wasn't just an incredible bit of luck, because she came sailing right back over the fence to grab one of her friends, and hauled him over too. No human could have jumped that high."

"I see," Dicker said. "You didn't get a chance to talk to her, did you?"

"No," the officer said, "But I think I do have an idea of who this girl is. We've gotten tons of reports about a group of kids allegedly living in an abandoned apartment building, and we think this girl may be one of them."

Dicker frowned. "Why have you never followed up those leads before, so that the kids could be put into foster homes?"

"We have followed up on the leads, but every time we check the place where they're supposed to live, they aren't there."

"I see."

"Well, anyway, are these super-kids still in high demand?"

"Yes, they are. Even if the girl you saw isn't really a super, I'd like to meet her. Do you have any idea of how you might be able to find her?"

"Yeah, because something just occurred to me a minute ago; every time we've checked that apartment where people have said the kids live, it's been during the day. Maybe they mostly stay there at night."

Dicker nodded, momentarily forgetting that the officer on the other end of the line couldn't see him. "Will you try finding them sometime in the near future?"

"Yeah. In fact, I'll go tonight."

"That's fine. I'll take a plane early tomorrow. I'll find out the truth about this kid, and if she really is a super, I'll find someone to apprentice her to."

"Alright. Thank you, Mr. Dicker."

"Good night."

Dicker hung up the phone and slid all of the papers on his desk into a manila folder. Spike was just going to have to wait.

Meanwhile, the all of the members of the Little Pack really were in apartment where they were reputed to live, and all of them were asleep, except for Aisling. She was tired, but her mind wasn't permitting her to sleep. She was still a bit shaken from her encounter with Kevin.

Kevin had long been in the habit of tormenting Aisling and her charges, but before today he had limited himself to crude remarks and infantile punishments like shoving and pinching. His aggression seemed to be escalating, though, as he had never tried to attack Patrick before. Normally, Kevin was mortally afraid of Patrick, because he had a general phobia of dogs. The fact that Kevin had tried to tackle someone he had previously had a deathly fear of frightened Aisling more than the fact that he had lifted her off the ground and made as if to crush her in his arms, which had never happened before either. Another thing that worried Aisling was the fact that Joey had been following Joaquin earlier in the day. This was the first time that Kevin had given some kind to warning prior to his attack.

Aisling rolled over on to her side and stared into the absolute darkness of the room she lay in. She could hear Vasilisa and Bell-Bell breathing on the other side of the room. The steadiness with which they drew their breaths calmed her down a bit. She rolled over again so that she was facing the wall. _Stop thinking about Kevin. Stop thinking about Kevin. _She took several slow, deliberate breaths and flopped onto her back. _Don't worry about it too much. . . He was just really angry about something today. . . That's all. . . That's all. . ._

Aisling dreamed that she was sitting on the roof of a house, with her face tilted toward the sky. The sky was filled with clouds, and although Aisling couldn't feel any wind, the clouds were rushing across the sky with remarkable speed, and they kept changing shapes. One looked like an open book, then a lamp, then a wishbone, then a snake. Aisling took her eyes of that cloud and focused on another one. It started out as a lizard, but changed to a paintbrush, then a banana, then a necklace, and finally a halo. Aisling looked away from that cloud and chose another one. This one was a rose, a cat, a pillow, a candy, and an owl before it disappeared on the far horizon. In the clouds, Aisling saw a horse, a car, a castle, a bridge, a daisy, a heart, a waterfall, and a whole assortment of other things. She marveled at the way the way the clouds artfully altered their shapes, but, very suddenly, she was disturbed by a great thump. The thump came from below her, and it was so forceful that it made her bounce on the roof she was perched on. Another thump immediately followed the first, and a third, and a fourth, in rapid succession.

Aisling jerked upright, her heart pounding. Even in her wakeful state, the thumping hadn't stopped. Aisling felt as if she were paralyzed; the thumping was someone pounding on the door that they used to get into the apartment. Several different instincts told her what to do, and, of course, every one of them conflicted. She should stay where she was, and hope the pounder went away, but at the same time she should scramble to wake up her Pack and try to move them somewhere safe, while she should also shake them awake to prepare them to fight off the intruder, while at the same time she should formulate some kind of brilliant plan to trick the intruder into making a fool of himself and leaving shame-faced, never to return. Presently, she did none of these things, because Janie had also woken up.

"Ash. . ?" she whimpered, sounding as if she were holding back tears. Aisling crawled across the room to Janie as Vasilisa woke up too.

"What's going on?" she asked, sounding only a bit more collected than Bella-Jane. Aisling put an arm around each of the girls and pulled them both close. The thumping didn't stop.

The high-pitched whining of a dog came from the mouth of the room, followed a panicked whisper from Joaquin.

"W-what should we do?"

Bella-Jane began to sob. Aisling still couldn't speak. She felt a cold wet nose bump against her cheek and a warm tongue brush across her face, and the feeling was so tender that it made her cry along with Bella-Jane. Patrick whined again. The atmosphere may have been dark as pitch, but Aisling could almost see the fear that emulated from her usually brave companions. The thumping continued, but was suddenly replaced by the crunching of a saw eating away at wood. Aisling's heart nearly stopped. The intruders were sawing the door apart.


	4. Policemen and Librarians

A flashlight lying on the ground by his feet, the very same policeman who had spoken to Rick Dicker about the ragamuffin girl who he thought might be a super was sawing away at the door where the girl supposedly lived, apparently with an accomplice or two. He had pounded his fist on the door fruitlessly for a few minutes, and had decided that he needed to enter by force if he was going to make any progress.

And so he stood, grinding away at the wood of the door with the small handsaw he had brought for this very purpose. The door was made of oak, and although it was old, it was putting up a formidable fight against the tiny saw that was being inexpertly wielded by the policeman. He made a horizontal line under the doorknob, pulled the saw out, then began to work his way upward, past the deadbolt. He pulled the saw out again and rotated it accordingly in order to carve out a rectangular portion of the door. Smiling smugly, he yanked the rusty doorknob and wrenched out the severed piece of wood.

The policeman, extremely pleased with himself, picked up his flashlight and pushed lightly on the door. It swung open with a slight groan and he stepped inside the apartment. He cast his beam of light around the room; it was completely bare except for an ancient roll-top desk against the left wall. On the right there was a tiny kitchen that was completely devoid of appliances, and straight ahead there was a hallway. The policeman ignored the kitchen and inspected the hallway.

The first room was a bathroom, but everything in it was either moldy or rusty. There were no signs of children.

He opened the next door. It was a linen cupboard, totally empty.

There were two more doors, and both were ajar. The policeman chose the one on the left, and entered it. There were no signs of life, only a scattering of blankets and pillows. There was a door on the right, probably a closet. He opened it to inspect it, and it turned out to be as empty as the linen closet in the hall.

The officer turned around to check out the one remaining room. His throat began to tighten with apprehension—surely this was where they were hiding. He swallowed hard and pushed the door of the room wide open.

The room was completely empty.

Up on the roof of the apartment building, Aisling was hugging Vasilisa like a proud mother.

"Lee, you are amazing." Vasilisa said nothing, but grinned triumphantly.

Joaquin, Patrick, and Bella-Jane were lying on their stomachs and watching what was going on in the street below. The revolving red-and-blue lights of police cars were flashing, and there were a significant number of officers standing around, who were looking either very casual or very tense. There were also some more mundane cars, and they mostly had worried-looking people in business suits standing around them.

Aisling lay down next to Joaquin, and Vasilisa lay down next to her. Aisling reached over and ruffled the girl's hair a bit.

"How did you do it?"

Vasilisa was still smiling broadly. "I don't know."

"Maybe it was just 'cause we were all scared," Patrick said, lifting his head and looking at Vasilisa. Joaquin nodded.

"Yeah, it always seems to happen like that, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Aisling said, placing her chin on her interlocked fingers. It _did_ always seem to happen that way. . . Whenever Kevin decided to strike, for example. . .

"Ash, I think we should move. They've gotten into the apartment now. They might think to come up here," Joaquin said.

Aisling nodded and stood up, and the rest of the assembly did as well. She cast her eyes over to the roof of the next building, which was level with the one they were standing on. There was a gap of about ten feet between the buildings, and Aisling regarded it coolly. She shrugged the strap of her bag higher onto her shoulder, gathered Bella-Jane into her arms, and with a literal spring in her step, she jumped over the gap between the two apartment buildings. She put down her charge, as well as her bag, then jumped back over to get Patrick, then Joaquin. By the same means that she had used to get them all onto the roof of the apartment building, Vasilisa was able to transport herself over to the new rooftop. There they sat to wait, huddled together to lessen the blistering effects of the night winds.

Down in the street, the policemen standing around their cars were watching the door where their comrade had entered. There were no noises coming from the apartment, so nothing could have happened yet. They waited, shifting their feet, waiting to hear the scream of a frightened girl or a deep-voiced command from their comrade. So, of course, they were universally disappointed when the officer came out by the way he had gone in, looking very sheepish. He approached them, and said, unnecessarily,

"There's no one in there."

The other officers, as well as the social service people, sighed and got back into their respective vehicles. The sheepish, deflated police officer climbed into his car, preparing himself to face his direct superior, when he suddenly got another idea. He turned his car around and sped in the direction of the building where the articles of the city's daily newspaper were composed.

The next morning, the head librarian of the John Steinbeck City Library was finishing a cup of coffee and reading the local paper, The Daily Reflection. She was waiting for the five kids who almost always came to the library in the morning. They were nice children, all of them, but she was glad that they didn't often remain inside the library to read their books, because they usually smelled quite strongly of sweat and unwashed skin.

The librarian was in the middle of a sip of coffee when one particular article in the side column of the newspaper caught her eye:

**City-wide search for girl, 14/15**

_Police searching for girl, believed to be fourteen or fifteen years old, with brown hair, brown eyes, five feet, two inches tall and weighing approximately one hundred and ten pounds.. Usually seen with four other children, estimated to be fourteen, eight, seven, and five years old respectively. If seen, with or without other children, please contact the police. _

The librarian swallowed hard and set her coffee mug onto her desk. She stared at the article. The five kids who came into the library on most days were probably homeless, as they never seemed to be in school. She had never called the police about them, though, because they never caused any trouble. She called each child's appearance to her mind. Indeed, the girl who appeared to be their leader was probably around fifteen years of age. She was a little over five feet in height, and probably just over one hundred pounds, and did have brown hair and eyes. The boy who seemed to be her second-in-command was a little taller and much darker in complexion; she had guessed that he was Mexican. He was probably fourteen years old. The next boy could have been any age between eight and twelve. His skin, hair, and eyes were all extremely fair, and he had a drab, expressionless face. The second-smallest girl had the look of an Eastern European, with very course black hair and bright blue eyes. She seemed much more intelligent and aware than the fair boy, but was probably younger, maybe seven. The last of the children was a girl of either five or six. She had black hair and black eyes, as well as a yellowish undertone to her skin that probably meant that she was Asian. She was also thoroughly adorable, in the librarian's opinion, and seemed to be amused by everything, although she said very little.

The librarian laid the newspaper down next to her coffee mug, her mind churning. Should she—

She jumped as she heard the main door open. There they were, the five kids.

"Hello," said the dark-skinned boy as he passed her desk.

"Hello," the librarian responded mechanically. The five walked past in single file, depositing their books in the book-drop as the passed. The librarian's heart began to pound. Should she call the police?

The five all walked to separate parts of the library, except for the oldest girl and the smallest girl, who walked together. The librarian felt the palms of her hands become slick with sweat.

Barely stopping to consider what she was doing, the librarian snatched up her phone and dialed the number of the local police department.


	5. Being Taken

Aisling led Bell-Bell past the shelves of picture books, for she was far too smart for those. They stopped in front of a shelf of books for older children, and gazed at the spines of the books. _Black Beauty. . . The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. . . Heidi. . . The Secret Garden. . . _Between these familiar titles, Bell-Bell found some with new, interesting-sounding titles and pulled them off the shelf. Then they slowly meandered over the shelves of classic literature, where Aisling picked up _Just So Stories _and_ Frankenstein, _both of which she had read before, and then picked up a new one, _The Persian Letters_, for good measure. She walked back to the library's foyer, where Joaquin was standing. He had checked out the _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy yet again. They were his favorite books, by far. Aisling handed her books to the librarian, who pulled out her pen and made notes of the books. She did the same for Bell-Bell, but Aisling noticed that the librarian seemed uncommonly tense. She kept flicking her eyes around nervously, and her hands shook as she made strokes with her ballpoint pen. Patrick came up to the desk and got his books noted down, as did Vasilisa. They thanked the librarian, who just nodded in response, and then they turned to leave.

As they were approaching the door, however, it was pushed open by a stout police officer, who strode in and was immediately followed by four more officers. The children froze. The first policeman walked up to the petrified Aisling and said,

"You're coming with us, young lady." He grabbed her upper arm and made to drag her toward the door and the other four officers did the same to the rest of the Pack.

Aisling's mind started to race. She needed to do something to protect her Pack. In a pathetic attempt to get free, she tried to jerk herself away from the policeman. He just grunted, then grabbed her other arm and began to frog-march her.

Outside the library, there were five police cars lined up neatly against the curb. Aisling turned her head and saw Vasilisa out of the corner of her eye. The girl was crying. Though she didn't think Vasilisa was considering escaping, Aisling shook her head violently to indicate that she shouldn't try. Vasilisa swallowed hard and nodded. Aisling swung her head in the other direction to see Patrick. She shook her head at him, too. He also nodded. Aisling couldn't see Joaquin or Bell-Bell, but she sensed the Bell-Bell was just as frightened as Vasilisa, and was probably crying as well.

The policeman let go of one of Aisling's arms in order to open the back door of his patrol car. He shoved her in a bit roughly, but she was far too terrified to protest. The officer slammed the door, then walked around the car and climbed into the driver's seat. He revved the engine and began to guide the car through the suburban streets of the city. Occasionally he glanced into the rear-view mirror to check on his prisoner.

After what seemed like only a few seconds to Aisling, they were in front of the police station and the officer was hauling her out of the car again. She stared straight ahead as she was pushed through the door, down a starkly lit hallway, and into a room with a frightening resemblance to a prison cell. Patrick, Joaquin, Vasilisa, and Bella-Jane were all pushed in after her, and all were stripped of the bags and knapsacks that held their vital belongings.

Somehow, in a fury of sobbing and trembling, they all ended up in a corner of the cement room. Aisling held the weeping Vasilisa, Joaquin held the shaking Janie, and Patrick sat between them all, looking miserable. For some amount of time that they couldn't calculate, they sat like that, feeling like prisoners about to be executed.

In a room down the hall from where the Pack sat confined, a conversation was going on between Rick Dicker and a very large man wearing a tailored business suit and a black mask.

"So, when is Frozone going to arrive?" the masked man asked of Dicker.

"He was supposed to be here about twenty minutes ago, along with Spike, and Wave Lady, and a few others." Dicker said.

"Maybe they just got stuck in some traffic."

"I hope so. I want to have a lot of supers at this meeting."

"Why?" the large man asked. "There's only one kid to talk about. How many people should she have to choose from?"

Dicker shook his head. "It's not that, Bob. I'm pretty sure that the girl the officer told be about is a genuine super, but I've also got a hunch about those other kids that they brought in with her. I don't know why, but I've got the idea that all of those other kids have super-powers too."

Bob raised his eyebrows. "It's possible."

Just then the door opened. A policeman held it open, and six people filed into the room, three men and three women. They were all dressed elegantly, but none of them were wearing masks. Dicker looked them over.

"Hello Spike, Mirage, Florus, Miss Interpretation, Frozone, Wave Lady," Dicker said, smiling and nodding at each. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."

"Hey, Lucius," Bob said, smiling at the thin black man whom Dicker had called "Frozone."

"Hey Bob," Lucius said, "What's with the mask?"

Dicker and the seven superheroes sat down at the long table that stood in the room. Dicker sat at the head, Bob sat across from Lucius, and the very slight woman called Mirage sat next to Bob. Addressing Lucius, Bob said,

"Er, I wasn't sure if I'd need it or not." He took the mask off.

Mirage turned to her tall neighbor and smiled. "Hello, Mr. Incredible," she said. Bob looked down at her.

"You can call me Bob," he paused, ". . . Mariella."

Mirage, or Mariella, smiled more broadly and said nothing else.

Dicker cleared his throat and addressed the company. "If you weren't previously informed, this is a meeting regarding the apprenticeship of one or several children with super-powers." The heroes all nodded. "Shall we have the children brought in?" There were nods and murmurs of affirmatives. "Very well then," Dicker said, and rose from his chair. The heroes followed him with their eyes as he opened the door and spoke to the officer who was standing just outside of it.

"Will you bring the children in now?"

"Yes, Mr. Dicker."

Dicker closed the door and resumed his seat at the head of the table. "I must ask you not to speak while the children are present. I will be questioning them." The heroes nodded mutely.

The door opened, and everyone seated at the table turned to look at it. Subconsciously, they expected to see a large, burly child being forced into the room by two burlier police officers whilst he or she kicked and thrashed and screamed. And so, they were extremely surprised to see a tiny girl of no more than six years being herded by a single policeman. The girl looked plainly terrified, and walked stiff-legged to the chair that the policeman pointed at. Following this girl was another of about the same age, who looked just as frightened. She sat down meekly next to the littler girl and stared at the tabletop. Next came an older boy who was so pale that his fear turned his skin a sickly green. With a very distressed look he slunk over to his indicated chair, next to the two small girls. After the pale boy came a tall, dark boy, who looked scared and indignant at the same time. He scrunched up his shoulders and sat in the chair across from the two small girls. Lastly there came a medium-sized teenage girl who may have been the leader of the bunch. She trembled visibly as she took the seat across from the pale boy. The policemen filed out, and the door was shut again.

At this point the room became completely silent. The only traces of sound came from the buzzing of the ceiling lights.

Rick Dicker broke the silence by clearing his throat. "Do you kids know why you're here?"

The oldest girl stared into her lap and shook her head.

"I would like you to know that you're not in any kind of trouble. In fact, we're very happy to have you here with us." The children didn't respond. "If you would answer a few questions for me, I would appreciate it a lot," Dicker continued, putting the tiniest edge of a pleading tone in his voice. The dark boy raised his head a bit and ventured to look at Dicker.

"First of all, I would like to know your names."

"Joaquin Guerrero," said the dark boy.

"Vasilisa Kolosov," the second-smallest child said very softly.

"Patrick Meyer-Young," said the boy with the ghastly complexion.

"Aisling Forrester," said the oldest girl.

The smallest girl said nothing, but looked up, burst into silent tears, and promptly looked down again. "She's Bella-Jane," the dark boy called Joaquin said. "Bella-Jane Simon."


	6. Being Assigned

After the name of the last child had been revealed, the room became quite silent once more. The silence was broken, however, when Dicker nodded decisively and said, very much to everyone's surprise,

"Thank you very much. You five may leave now."

The children all looked up simultaneously, and Bella-Jane's tears stopped. They stood up as Dicker did, and followed him to the door, and let themselves be led out by the same officers who had marched them in. They didn't look quite as frightened as they had when they had entered, but they were definitely not at ease. Dicker closed the door after the back of the last retreating child, and then resumed his place at the head of the long table. He turned to the pleasant-faced, black-haired woman whom he had called "Miss Interpretation" and said,

"Well, Emily? What do you think?"

Emily bobbed her head, a thoughtful expression on her face. "Well, I thought that only one of them was supposed to have powers, but actually they all do."

"All five of them?" Spike asked, impressed.

"And, supposedly they were all homeless and living together?" Wave Lady asked, her eyebrows high on her forehead.

"Yeah, that was the story," said Bob, who was, like everyone else in the room, slightly incredulous.

"I believe the story. From the way they looked, they were either homeless or dreadfully neglected," Mirage put in. "Didn't you notice the way they smelled?"

No one chose to answer the question, although the strong odor of the childrens' unwashed clothes and bodies still lingered in the room.

"Yeah, they looked like they were in pretty bad shape," Lucius said, putting his chin in his hand. "So, the plan is to give these kids homes?"

"Yes," Dicker said curtly.

"Well, who gets which kid?" Florus asked, addressing Dicker.

"I don't know yet. I'll do the deciding after I find out more about each of them. Emily," he said, turning again to Miss Interpretation, "What kinds of powers do they have?"

"Well, that oldest girl, what did she say her name was?"

"Ashley," said Spike.

"No, it was 'ash-ling'," said Lucius.

"Well, anyway, she has powers of flexibility. It's almost like she's made of rubber, she can stretch herself so easily."

"You mean like Elastigirl?" Mirage asked.

"No, not like that. She can't stretch herself out, but she can bend herself almost any way she wants. Like, she can turn her head three hundred and sixty degrees, put a knee behind her head with no effort, and stuff like that. And not only can she do that, she can use her flexible bones as springs to make herself jump really high, and far, and fast, and it would be nearly impossible to hurt her with force, because she's just so. . . bendable."

As Emily was talking, Dicker was scribbling furiously on his note pad.

"What about the cute little girl?" Wave Lady asked, the shadow of a smile on her face. Miss Interpretation grimaced a little, and reached up to scratch the back of her head.

"What's the matter?" Dicker asked, looking up from his notes.

"Well. . . looking at her, I get the idea that she has a hard time controlling her powers. I mean, without some strict training she could do a lot of damage to herself, not to mention everything around her, if she were to lose control. See, she's an energy manipulator. She can absorb energy, concentrate it, unleash it at will, channel it. . ."

"What kind of energy?" Florus wanted to know.

"Every kind of energy! Right now she only knows how to concentrate and release heat energy, but I can see her potential. She can manipulate light energy, sound energy, electrical energy, _nuclear energy_. . ._" _she trailed off again, awed by the scope of the tiny girl's potential power.

Spike whistled, very impressed. Dicker just nodded and scribbled down some more notes.

Bob was eager to know more. "Okay, how about the pale boy?"

Miss Interpretation shook herself, as if to get rid of an unpleasant thought. "Um, he's got an empathy for animals. You know, taming them, communicating with them, taking their shapes, and all that. At this point in his life he can talk to dogs, and turn himself into one, but I think that if he practiced a lot he could get good connections with almost any kind of land mammal."

"That's pretty cool," Wave Lady said. Dicker continued to scrawl furiously on his note pad.

"And the little girl with the thick hair? What can she do?" Mirage asked of Emily.

"Now, she has tons of potential. She can displace particles, her own and those of other people and things. I mean, she can move them around, make the particles spread out, make them condense, generate explosions or keep them from happening. When the particles wander away from each other, the object seems to disappear. Plus, if she could do it really quickly and really efficiently, which I believe she can, she could use it as a kind of pseudo-teleportation."

"Now that's _really_ cool," Lucius said. "So what about the last kid?"

"Er, I hate to use this word, but his powers may be the most _mundane_ of the bunch. He's definitely more about brain than brawn. He has impeccable analytical skills, an excellent capacity for solving puzzles and finding the sources of problems, and overall he's just really smart."

Dicker nodded once again, and with a sweep of his pen he finished his note-taking. "Thank you, Emily," he said graciously, smiling a little.

Emily smiled back. "It's no trouble."

"Alright," said Bob, turning toward Dicker, "When are you going to decide who gets to take home each kid?"

"I've already decided that."

The assembled heroes all subconsciously leaned forward, being quite anxious to know if they were going to acquire apprentices.

In their cell down the hall, Aisling's Pack was sitting in a circle. None of them spoke, but each knew how all of the others felt. At this point, they were far more bewildered than scared, and all of their minds were dominated by the things that had just happened in the fluorescently-lit room down the hall from where they were sitting now. Eventually, Vasilisa broke the silence.

"I'm hungry," she said, to no one in particular.

"Me too," Joaquin said.

"Me three," said Aisling, "but they took our stuff away."

There was no clock in their little cell of a room, but their stomachs told them that it was nearly lunchtime, and they began to long for their bags and knapsacks, which contained fruit, bags of nuts, and little packages of peanut butter crackers.

"How long are they going to keep us here?" Patrick asked.

Aisling shook her head. "I don't know."

"Well, we'll be stuck here until they figure out what to do with us," Joaquin said, "And who knows how long that could take. They're probably thinking of carting us off to orphanages. Or, if they're really sadistic, they'll saddle us in foster homes." He shuddered visibly.

"God, I hope not," Aisling said under her breath. "Either way, we'd be separated," she said more audibly. Bella-Jane scooted closer to Aisling and pulled herself into her lap. Aisling hugged her. She was in the midst of sighing when the door was opened, not by a policeman, but by the gray-haired man in the business suit who had asked them their names. He closed the door behind him, and stood over the children in an imperious, but curiously un-intimidating way. They stared up at him, not being able to think of anything to say.

The man had four index cards in his hand, the first of which he handed to Joaquin, the second to Patrick, the third to Vasilisa, and the fourth to Aisling. Aisling looked at her card. It read:

**Ashling Forrester**

**Powers: extreme flexibility, near immunity to impact wounds, ability to jump very high/far**

**To be apprenticed to: Wave Lady (aka Stephanie Waxworth) **

Paying absolutely no attention to the fact that her name had been misspelled, Aisling looked up at the gray-haired man and stared at him with her mouth wide open. Joaquin had a more dramatic reaction.

"_Edna Mode_!" he nearly screamed, "You're apprenticing me to a _fashion designer_?"

The man said nothing.

"Uh, I don't get it," said Patrick.

"Yeah, how'd you know all this stuff about us?" Vasilisa asked. She had also taken to gawking at the man, who ignored her question.

"If you have no objections, you will be relocated as quickly as possible. Oh, and if you must know," he said, addressing Joaquin, "she has other work aside from fashion design."

And then, without so much as a by-your-leave, he strolled out of the room, leaving the entire Pack confounded.


	7. The City of Dust

In a dusty, forgotten city a few hundred miles from anywhere important, a very unsightly man was pulling himself out of bed and beginning to stagger around his very untidy apartment. The apartment wasn't entirely unlike the one that Aisling had lived in with her companions; it too sported few furnishings, had walls that were mostly decorated with water stains, and smelled very badly of stagnant, stale air.

The man who had just risen from the musty bed in the corner of the room moved around the miserable space in a fairly business-like way, turning on the lamps in the same order as he did every day before stepping into the tiled area that served as a kitchen. He looked at the clock that hung in the kitchen area—it was seven fifty-four. He was up early.

The man opened the refrigerator and stared into it for a few moments. He already knew what he wanted to eat, but he cast his eyes over all of the contents anyway. There was a drawer of raw vegetables, another of fruit, one jar each of peanut butter, marrow mite, cream cheese, mayonnaise, raspberry jam, and margarine, a half-empty carton of orange juice, a paper package of sliced ham, and a carton of eggs. The man picked up the jar of jam and pulled two eggs from the carton, then nudged the door closed with his foot.

After scrambling the eggs with quite a bit of salt and smearing some jam on the single remaining bagel from the breadbox on the counter, he ate his breakfast, not bothering to sit down. After he had swallowed the last bit of undesirably-stale bagel, he began to wander aimlessly around his small apartment. As he wandered, he rubbed his left shoulder with his right hand. Through his thin cotton shirt, he could feel the familiar ridges and bumps of the reddish scar tissue that adorned his skin. He meandered from corner to corner, zigzagged across the deplorably ratty carpet, and ended up sitting on his bed, still massaging his shoulder vigorously. After a while he moved up to his neck, which was also covered in dark pink scars. He winced at the familiar pain that came from agitating the sensitive skin, and gradually moved from his neck to his left cheek, and then from his cheek to his nearly hairless scalp. What hair he had was on the right side of his head, and most of that had fallen out, due to stress, he supposed. He rubbed his fingers over his scalp, tracing the irregularities of the elevated skin. As he did so, he felt glad, as he always did, that his landlord didn't care about the fact that he had covered the bathroom mirror, along with all of the other reflective surfaces in the apartment, with soap.

The man looked at the clock again. It was eight sixteen—time to start getting ready for work.

He stopped rubbing his skin, slid off the bed, and made his way toward his tiny bathroom. He glanced at the soap-coated mirror, satisfied by the fact that he couldn't see any reflection in it. As long as he couldn't see himself, and was fairly sure that other people couldn't either, he felt relatively secure.

After showering and dressing, he looked at his clock—eight thirty-one, not quite time to leave. He began to pace around the flat again, this time rubbing the spot where his left eye had once been. The incident that had left him with the masses of scar tissue had also deprived him of his eye, which was now sealed over with grotesque folds of lumpy, dark pink flesh.

He stopped in front of the television and considered turning it on, but decided not to. The only program he watched consistently was the national news, and that was only to see if they had found any new superheroes to interview. He knew that if he missed one, the networks would replay it incessantly for a few days, as they always did. Since most people liked to watch the footage about the supers, the networks literally tried to milk the segments for all of their worth. There was one channel that still occasionally played the interviews that Frozone, Elastigirl, and Mr. Incredible had sat for five years ago, after they and two other unnamed supers had defeated a giant robot, the event that had prompted the government to let all of the nation's heroes resume their glorious work.

Two months after those interviews, one of the unnamed supers who had helped to defeat the rogue robot had begun to perform hero work under the name of "Ultraviolet" and the tutelage of Mr. Incredible. She had sat for multiple interviews, one for every major news network it seemed, and had been a hype for about four months. The excitement over her appearance had declined speedily when another young super had come onto the scene, this one being named Gigadash and having Elastigirl as a mentor. The hype over Gigadash had lasted about the same length as the one over Ultraviolet had, because new supers had begun to spring up all over the place, each one with a nifty name and a spiffy costume. He had seen all of their heroic debuts, all of the tapes of their exploits, all of their stage-managed interviews. The supers fascinated him.

Remembering that he still had to prepare his lunch, he went to the refrigerator again and pulled out an assortment of vegetables, as well as the jars of various spreads. He put mayonnaise on some lettuce leaves, cream cheese on the stalks of celery, margarine on the bits of bell pepper, peanut butter on a carrot, and marrow mite on some cucumber, then looked at the clock—eight forty-five, time to leave. He wrapped the pieces of his odd lunch in separate sheets of plastic film and put them in a paper sack. He then collected the wool cap, eye patch, and scarf that he always wore when he went out, so as to hide as many of his shameful marks as possible, and put them on. He then left his apartment, made his way down two flights of steel-grate stairs, and stepped into the cool air outside.

The man had the advantage of working from nine to five, but not in the traditional way; he worked from nine p.m. to five a.m. each night. He passed very few people as he strolled down the dusty streets of the city to the place he worked at, and was grateful for it. Even with the cap, eye patch, and scarf, he still sometimes felt that people could see his deformities. He walked quickly, as the wind was chilling, and it was less than fifteen minutes before he reached his destination, the city's courthouse. He used his small key to let himself into the building through a back door, and locked it again before descending the dank stairwell that led into the basement. He was swallowed in complete darkness by the time he reached the basement, but his fingers instinctively found the lightswitch that activated all of the dim overhead lights.

He walked over to the chute that all of his assignments appeared in, dropped from above by secretaries or lawyers. He picked up the mass of papers and flipped through them. There were requests for documents, questions about legal disputes of the past, inquiries from people who were looking for precedents, and all of the other normal things. After removing his eye patch, scarf, and cap, knowing that there was no one here to see him, he selected a paper at random from the pile, dropped the rest on his desk, and set to work.

As he leafed through the filing cabinets, books, ledgers, and portfolios that the basement contained, looking for this paper or that court sketch or that collection of trial notes, his mind began to wander. He worked silently for hours, thinking about everything from the weather in Canada to the diet of vegetarians. Some time after midnight, his mind drifted back to the subject of superheroes.

A few months ago, he had been sipping tea in a coffee shop before heading to work, and the cover of magazine on the unoccupied table next to him had caught his eye. It had been a popular culture magazine, and had sported an old, black-and-white photograph of Mr. Incredible on its cover. The tagline had read, "Heroes of yesterday, heroes of today, page 21." Interested, he had flipped to the indicated page, and found that the article covered not only page twenty-one, but every page from twenty-one to thirty. There hadn't been much text, though—the article had mostly consisted of pictures. On each of the pages, there were little collages of photographs. Each collage boasted pictures of two separate superheroes, one hero from some past decade, and one hero from the present. The captions and blocks of text that accompanied the pictures explained the vague or vivid similarities that existed between the two heroes of different eras, and even hinted at the idea that the each of the pairs could be parent and child. He had examined all ten of the pages thoroughly, sipping his weak tea. Looking at the article, He had thought that there wasn't really any relation between Psychwave and Miss Interpretation, but he was fairly sure that there was a close familial relation between Mr. Incredible and Gigadash. There was a certain pair of pictures, which were apparently completely unrelated, but which showed the two in almost precisely the same pose, and with eerily similar facial expressions.

Thinking back on that magazine article, he realized that he hadn't seen any proposed descendant for Blazestone, who had always been one of his favorite superheroines. She had had a lot of personality, and a literally fiery nature that he had admired. There also hadn't been any supposed children for Stratogale, but that, of course, made sense; she had only been nineteen when she had died. There hadn't been any for Elastigirl, either, which was kind of disappointing to him, but not so disappointing as the fact that Blazestone seemed to have disappeared entirely. Without her, he had no excuse for writing passionate love notes, and then ripping them up and watching them swirl down the drain of his bathroom sink. It had actually been quite a long time since he had down that for any superheroine, and he smiled a little at the memory.

The man got up from his chair and stretched himself, trying to guess the time. There was no clock in the basement, but he thought that it was probably sometime between one o'clock and three o'clock in the morning. He glanced at the pile of remaining papers, which was very small by that point, and decided to go upstairs to check the time.

He ascended the dank stairwell and felt his way along the wall until he came to the door that led into one of the main offices. He eased it open, and it creaked as he leaned in and flipped the lightswitch. The clock on the desk nearest to him read two fifty-five. The man turned the lights off and eased the door closed again, then went back down to the basement to finish his night's work.

After placing the fruits of his work in their respectively labeled folders, he took the folders upstairs in armfuls and placed them in desk drawers, cabinets, in-boxes, and all of the other places that had been indicated, then checked the time again. Four forty-nine. It was close enough. He switched off all of the lights, replaced the items that served to hide his face, locked the back door with his little key, and started the short walk home.


	8. Departure

**My sincere thanks go out to Gremblin, marco2050, TheWhiteMonk, Trugeta, AlchemistKosame, the real Violet Parr, Maculata, Trekkie in a TruckerHat, Lesalanna, and crystalwish for their reviews. You've all been very kind. **

A little while after the meeting about the kids had concluded, the only people left in the fluorescently-lit room were Rick Dicker and Bob. As Dicker was slipping some papers into his briefcase, he said,

"You know, Bob, I'm not sure why I even asked you to come to this meeting. After all, you're busy with your daughter, and Helen is busy with Dash, and obviously they won't be needing sidekicks for a while."

"Yeah, well, it was still nice to come out here and get a glimpse of the people I might be seeing in the future," Bob said good-naturedly. Dicker smiled and snapped his briefcase shut.

"But, are you sure it's a good idea to send that boy to Edna?" Bob asked, "I mean, you know how, er, _touchy_, she gets when people ask if they can work with her." Dicker only shrugged and said,

"I can only hope that she'll respect my decision. I think that working alongside Edna in designing super-suits will be an excellent way for the boy to develop his abilities,"

Bob shrugged his enormous shoulders. "Well, Edna has to accept help some time. I mean, she's the only super-suit designer in the whole country, now that that other guy's dead. What was his name?"

"Pierre Prévert," Dicker answered.

"Well, anyway," Bob said, "she must be really over-worked these days."

Dicker nodded. "I realize that. She's working as efficiently as she possibly can, considering the circumstances."

"Yeah," Bob said as the two exited the room. They left the police station together, and then they parted. "Take care, Bob," Dicker said.

"You too, Rick."

Meanwhile, in the back seat of a little blue car that was nosing its way through Clearwater's congested downtown area, Aisling and Bella-Jane were both staring at their feet, wondering if it would be better to try to talk to this new lady or to just bear the silence. They were afraid to ask any questions, because they didn't know how to address her, and neither did they have anything to say to each other, because each knew how uncomfortable the other felt. After they had left the downtown area, it became clear to Aisling that the lady was heading for the airport, and, finally, she couldn't resist asking a question.

"Um, Miss Stephanie?" she said tremulously. Stephanie turned her head very slightly and looked at Aisling through the corner of her eye.

"What is it, sweetheart?" she asked, her already highly-placed eyebrows rising higher onto her forehead.

"Where are we going?"

Stephanie smiled and said, "To Chicago. It's one of the greatest cities on Earth."

"Where's Chicago?" Bella-Jane asked, leaning over to whisper to Aisling.

"It's in Illinois. Pretty far away from here," Aisling answered, speaking softly into Janie's ear.

"It's really different from this city," Miss Stephanie said, guiding the small car into a parking lot that was full of cars almost identical to the one she was driving, "but I think you'll like it." She was still smiling.

She stopped the car by the wall of the building that bordered one side of the parking lot, then stepped out and indicated that the girls should follow her. They did, trailing slightly behind their brand-new guardian as she walked into the spacious building and strode up to a desk that had a bored-looking man seated behind it. The man grunted something that may have been a greeting, then pushed some papers across the desktop. Stephanie leaned over the desk and scribbled on the forms for a few minutes, while Aisling and Janie stood mutely behind her, each shifting from one foot to the other.

After a few minutes, Stephanie scrawled her name at the bottom of the last paper and shoved the documents back across the desktop. The traces of her smile still hadn't left her face.

"Thanks. Are we good to go?" she asked the man. He nodded, then returned to whatever boring task he had been performing prior to her arrival.

Stephanie then strode back to the place where Aisling and Bell-Bell were standing. Aisling took note of way the heels of her patent leather shoes tapped smartly as she walked, and the confident way she held her head, occasionally reaching up to push strands of her shiny, wavy hair away from her face. She smiled at her two new charges, and almost to their surprise, they found themselves smiling back.

"Come on, girls, we're going home."

While all of that was happening, two policemen were trying, with very limited success, to frog-march Joaquin to Rick Dicker's car. Dicker had planned to take the boy to San Francisco himself to attempt to reason with Edna, but presently he found himself trying to reason with the stubborn boy.

"This is unwarranted!" the boy was saying. He wasn't quite shouting, but he was talking quite a bit louder than necessary, considering that the person he was accusing of being irrational was only four feet away from him. "This is unfair, unprecedented, unconstitutional—"

Dicker, who normally had an interminable supply of patience, found himself feeling frustrated. The police officers gave up trying to lead Joaquin and began to force him along. Dicker walked beside them as they made their very slow way down to the rented car at the curb. Joaquin didn't cease his rant, however.

"This is a deliberate affront to my masculinity!"

In spite of his frustration with the boy's lack of cooperation, Dicker was impressed with his vocabulary. He opened the back door of the car.

"You can't force me to perform demeaning tasks just because I'm not white!" Joaquin said, trying once again to wrench himself out of the hands of the policemen, who did not yield. "That's what this is about, isn't it? You're trying to degrade me because I'm—"

At that point, Dicker felt the need to interrupt. "Joaquin, I'm not doing this because I want to humiliate you. Miss Mode needs someone to help her design costumes for supers, and I think that your unique talents would be useful to her."

After Joaquin heard the phrase "design costumes for supers", he stopped his diatribe. He looked at Dicker incredulously.

"She makes costumes for superheroes?" At this point, he had become docile enough to allow the police officers to shove him into the car, and they did so. Now fairly sure that Joaquin would come with him quietly, Dicker circled around to the other side of the car and got into the driver's seat. Joaquin began to ask questions, now in a much more civil manner.

"Why are you assigning me to help her, anyway? I don't know how I could."

"Your powers don't lend themselves to traditional hero work, so I think it would be better for you to—" Joaquin interrupted him.

"Powers? I don't have any powers. The rest do, but I don't."

"You have more talents than you think you do," Dicker answered cryptically.

"But, anyway, I've never heard that she was the one who made the costumes for the superheroes."

"Oh, she's been doing it for years. She's mostly known as an ordinary fashion designer, but aside from that, she designs and distributes the super-suits that all of the country's heroes wear. There used to another person, Pierre Prévert, who designed super-suits, but he's dead now, so the burden is all on Edna. Since she had so much work to do, and you seem to have the ideal powers to help her out---"

"I already told you, I don't have any powers."

"You do, but they're not very obvious. Doing this might help to bring them out."

Joaquin was not convinced, but he didn't say anything.

At the same time, Patrick was sitting in the passenger seat of a car, beside Mr. Daniel Copperton, who was known to the world as "Spike". Patrick was staring sullenly out the window (he was incapably of staring any way but sullenly), as he didn't have anything to say. Daniel was a cheerful man, though, and tried to get the dreadfully morose Patrick to talk.

"So, are you excited?" he asked, smiling at the boy.

"Yeah." Patrick said, but the tone of the single syllable spoke for itself.

"We're going to Houston, down in Texas. You ever been down there?"

"No."

"No? Got any family down there?"

"No."

"I play the guitar. Did you ever play any instruments?"

"No."

Daniel knew that he wasn't getting anywhere.

"Do you like animals?"

"Uh-huh."

Satisfied by the fact that he had gotten an answer that was more than one syllable, Daniel continued. "I've got a ranch down there, you know. It's got some cows, and a few horses, and a whole bunch of dogs. It's a great place."

Patrick brightened at the mention of dogs; he actually turned his head to look at Daniel. "Dogs?" he asked, "How many? What kind?"

"'Bout twelve, last I counted. They're all kinds of dogs, good, lovable mutts. You like dogs a lot, don't you?"

"Yup. And they usually like me, too. I hope your dogs will like me."

Now that he had coaxed a few complete sentences from Patrick, Daniel felt confident that he could make more progress. He began to whistle to himself, glad to see that the corners of the sad boy's mouth were curving up.

As Daniel and Patrick carried on their conversation, Vasilisa sat in the front passenger seat of a different car, this one being driven by Lucius Best. Vasilisa looked at the index card that she still had in her hand:

**Vasilisa Kolosov**

**Powers: ability to displace particles (pseudo-teleportation, pseudo-invisibility, pseudo-telekinesis)**

**To be apprenticed to: Aquaria (aka Henrietta "Honey" Best)**

Remembering the question that she had asked the large-nosed man and gotten no answer to, she turned to Lucius and asked,

"Seriously, how _did_ you know all of this stuff about us?" she indicated the card.

Lucius grinned and answered, "Hey, we're superheroes. We know everything."

"No you don't!" Vasilisa said, but it wasn't an accusation, because she smiled as she said it. Then, for a reason she couldn't identify, she began to laugh. Not long after she started, Lucius started too, and Vasilisa knew that this wasn't going to be a bad experience at all.


	9. Secrets and Boxes

**Again, my thanks to those who reviewed. Before I present Chapter 9, I have a favor to ask of you. If you can think of a suitable superhero name for Aisling, could you please let me know by way of review or e-mail? I'm having trouble thinking up a good one. **

_Dear Joaquin, _

_ I'm sitting in math class right now. The first time I walked into this classroom, I got the idea that I would hate it, and I do. I mean, I've always hated math, and it's even worse because the teacher is a big prude. She has a long nose and glasses on a chain and she always wears these really tragic dresses that look like the ones my grandma used to wear when she came over to our house for Thanksgiving dinner or whatever. If she wasn't so mean (the teacher, not my grandma), I would probably feel sorry for her. _

_But, anyway, all of my other classes are fine. At first, the school had me stuck in all of these remedial classes. It took the teachers a couple of days to figure out that I wasn't really that stupid, so I got put in regular English and regular Spanish, but I couldn't go to the normal science class because to be there you have to be in normal algebra. Since I don't know anything about math, the teacher of the science class for morons wouldn't move me up, but after I got full marks on a bunch of assignments and quizzes, she asked me if I wanted to take a placement test, and I said yes. I took the test, and it was on a bunch of stuff that I learned in elementary school, so I got full marks on that too. The teacher was so impressed that she decided that I didn't belong in her class or the class called "Science 9", and instead had me moved into a Biology class, which is normally only for tenth graders. It's kind of hard but I think it's fun. The teacher is really cool, and all of the stuff we learn is interesting. I'm doing good in Spanish, thanks to everything you taught me, P.E. is okay, and art is pretty neat. _

_I can't decide if my favorite class is English or Biology. After about a week in the regular English 9 class, the teacher asked me if I was interested in being part of the honors class, and I said yes to that too. They had me write an essay about why I wanted to be in the higher class, and I guess it was good enough, because they let me in. Even though it's an honors class, it's pretty easy right now because we're studying _A Tale of Two Cities_ and I've already read it. Next we're going to be studying _The Scarlet Letter_, and I've already read that too._

_On my third day at this school, I found a great way to make money. I'll tell you all about it later. I have a huge boodle in my sock drawer, and Mom has no idea. _

_Oh, I forgot to tell you about something funny that happened on the first day I spent with Mom. After she brought us to her apartment, she said that Janie and I could take a bath, and we did. We had fun splashing each other and playing with the soap bubbles. I washed my hair three times to get all of the grime out, and did the same for Janie. Then we got out and dried ourselves and came out of the bathroom wrapped in towels, because we didn't want to put our icky clothes on again and Mom had said that she would let us wear some of hers. When she came out of her bedroom with the clothes in her arms, she took a look at me and said, "I thought your hair was _brown_!" I guess my hair had been dirtier than I'd thought. I had nearly forgotten that my hair is supposed to be blonde. The look on her face when she said that made me laugh. _

_I like living with Mom. I stopped thinking of her as "Miss Stephanie" after a few days of staying with her. She's really nice, and she's a good cook. We do have to do chores around the apartment, but they're not bad. Is living with Edna Mode any fun? I've heard that she's kind of eccentric. _

_Oh, the bell's about to ring. I guess I'll wrap this up._

_Love from Aisling_

Aisling signed her name with a little flourish, then folded up the letter and slipped it into a paper folder. She watched the second hand on the clock jolt tediously. Eighteen more seconds.

She took out her small, patent leather assignment book and wrote down the homework, even though she knew she wouldn't do it. She looked over the assignments from the other classes. There were pages to read for English, but she didn't have to read them because she had already read _A Tale of Two Cities_ several times. There was an anatomical sketch to work on for Biology; that could be difficult. No homework for art, and of course none for P.E., but for Spanish she had to write a page-long composition about an element of Spanish culture.

The bell rang, and every person seemed more anxious than the next to get out of the classroom. Aisling pushed with the rest, and hurriedly made her way to her locker. She put on her coat and gloves, collected her books, and then went outside to greet her clients.

They were standing about halfway down the school's front steps, on the right side, as they did every day. Before approaching them, she took out her paper folder and a pencil. She smiled as she strode up to the knot of boys that made up her clientele.

"So, what do you have for me today?" she asked of the eleven boys who clustered around her as she approached them.

"An essay about why we study languages. Three pages long," one said.

"These questions for science," another said, handing her a sheet of paper.

"A two-paragraph analysis of _To Kill a Mockingbird_," a third said, and one-by-one the boys listed their assignments.

Aisling wrote all of this down, and noted the names of the clients by their respective assignments. She didn't need to ask any names, as all eleven of the boys were regular customers of hers. After scribbling down the first ten, she turned to face the eleventh, who said,

"Oh, I'm supposed to do a one-page composition about an inventor."

"Which one?" she asked, pencil poised above her notepaper.

"Any inventor. Just pick a random one."

Aisling finished writing, folded up her piece of paper, put it in her coat pocket, and nodded to herself. "Who's paying in advance?" she asked, holding out her gloved hand. Five of the assembled boys pulled bills from their pockets, smoothed them out, and handed them over. Aisling took the bills and flipped through them. There were two twenty-dollar bills, four five-dollar bills, and two ten-dollar bills---perfect. She pocketed the money, gave a little wave to her clients, and took her leave.

She walked very quickly, with her hands shoved far down into the pockets of her coat. It was the middle of December, very close to the start of Christmas vacation, and the air was bitterly cold. By the time she reached the elementary school down the street, she felt as though her nose was going to fall off.

She gently pushed through the crowd of young children that were milling around in front of the school, and walked down the cheerfully painted and papered hallways of the school until she reached the classroom that had "1C" painted very conspicuously above its door. She stopped inside the doorframe, and beneath the chaos of paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling she saw her beloved Bella-Jane sitting at her desk, putting the final details on a drawing. The teacher looked up from her own desk and smiled as Aisling came in.

"Hello, Ashley," the teacher said pleasantly.

"Hello," Aisling said, smiling back, not bothering to correct the teacher. People so often mistook her name to be "Ashley" that she had ceased to care many years prior. She walked up behind Bell-Bell and tugged at her hair playfully.

"Come on, Bell-Bell, get your books."

Bella-Jane didn't say anything in response, but she obligingly stowed her crayons and paper away in her desk, gathered up her floppy, gaudily-colored workbooks, and put them into the backpack that Mom had supplied her with. She retrieved her lunchbox and gloves and coat, and the two left the school, waving good-bye to the teacher on the way out.

The walk home was short, and they entertained each other with the kind of chatter that sisterly people share. Bella-Jane told Aisling about sitting in a circle with the other first-graders in her class and talking about fear, and Aisling told Bella-Jane everything that she had learned about butterflies in her biology class that day.

By the time they reached their apartment complex, they were both thoroughly chilled. Aisling savored the warmth of the lobby for a few seconds after stepping through the door, and then went up to the main desk to get the mail.

"Number sixteen," the lady behind the counter said, no longer needing to ask in which flat Aisling lived, and she handed over a thick stack of envelopes. "Oh, and this came too," the secretary said, placing a medium-sized cardboard box onto the counter. Aisling gave the letters to Janie and picked up the box, and was surprised to find that it was very light. She gave it a shake, but could only hear a muffled rustling sound. It sounded like fabric; perhaps Mom had ordered some clothes from a catalog.

They tromped up the three flights of stairs that led up to their fourth-floor flat, and Aisling opened the door with the key that she always wore on a piece of twine around her neck. Bella-Jane shed her backpack, coat, and gloves, then sat at the kitchen table to flip through the mail. She passed quickly over the bills, briefly examined the covers of the magazines, and then found something that actually interested her.

"Vasilisa sent me a letter!" she said, grinning open-mouthed at Aisling as she held up the envelope that their friend had decorated with rainbow-hued fish. Aisling smiled back and set the box on the table. Bella-Jane ran off to the room that they shared. Aisling wondered briefly if she should open the package, but decided not to.

After treating herself to a slice of the cake that stood under a glass dome on the kitchen counter, Aisling got her typewriter off of the shelf of the hall closet and settled down at the kitchen table to start on the assignments that the boys had given her. She remembered that Justin, Hugh, Alexander, Mario, and Michael had paid her in advance, so their assignments were her first priority. None of the tasks that the boys had her perform were ever very difficult—they all seemed to have trouble with writing, which was one of her strongest subjects, and it was a great help to her that she was thoroughly versed in all of the classics. As she was looking over the list, the phone began to trill, and she knew that it was Mom.

"Hello?" she said as she picked up the receiver

"Hi, Doll. Is everything alright over there?" It was indeed the woman she called Mom. It couldn't have been anyone else, because Mom always called at ten minutes after three to see if they were home.

"Yeah, we just got home."

"Did you pick up the mail?"

"Yup. Janie got a letter from our friend in Metroville, and we got a package."

"Oh! I think I know what that is! Did you open it?"

"Uh, no," Aisling answered, a bit confused as to what Mom sounded so excited about.

"Oh, good. Don't open it until I get home, okay?"

"Okay. Bye Mom."

"Bye-bye, Sweetie."

Aisling hung up the phone and resettled herself to commence her work. Doing this meant sacrificing every weekday afternoon except Friday, but it was a fabulous source of income. Hugh's assignment, the analysis of _To Kill a Mockingbird_, was finished in less than twenty minutes. Mario's assignment, a brief explanation of planetary motion, was finished in even less time. Before five fifteen, when Mom usually got home, she had finished not only the five assignments for the boys who had paid in advance, four of the others as well. The only ones left were the essay about the purpose of studying languages and the paragraph about the inventor. Both required a bit of research, and she knew that she could go to the library that very evening on the excuse of needing to do research for her Spanish homework. Beaming with self-satisfaction, she puffed on the freshly typed assignments to make the ink dry, then stashed them in her folder. Almost as if on cue, Mom walked into the apartment just as Aisling was closing the door of the closet after putting the typewriter away. Hearing the door slam, Bella-Jane burst out of the bedroom where she had been reading for the two hours that Aisling had been working.

"Hey, Babe!" Mom said happily as she scooped Janie into her arms and hugged her. "Did you have a good day?"

"Mm-hmm," Janie said as she was set down again. Mom turned to Aisling.

"How 'bout you?" Aisling shrugged her shoulders.

"It was all the same as usual," she said. "What about you?"

"It was kind of busy, but it wasn't too bad. Now, let's get to this package here," she flung her long coat over the back of a chair and peeled off her gloves. "Go ahead and open it."

Aisling pulled the cardboard package toward herself, and noticed for the first time that it was addressed to her and not to Mom. She gave it another shake as Bella-Jane clambered onto a chair to get a better view of the object of excitement. Aisling picked up the pen that was lying on the table and ripped a groove in the packaging tape, then pried the box open. What she saw was a layer of tissue paper and a folded letter. She picked up the letter, unfolded it, and read it out loud:

"To Miss Aisling Forrester, alias undeclared. Main contents constructed of fabric derived from material designed to never inhibit movements. Accessories constructed of chemically enhanced rubber. Color selected to compliment blonde hair, brown eyes. Monogram absent. All contents machine-washable."

Aisling wrinkled her forehead, still confused. "I don't get it," she said, looking to Mom for a help. Mom just grinned cryptically and said,

"It _is_ what I thought it was."

Aisling, wanting to get to the bottom of the situation, dug her hand into the box, and underneath the tissue paper, she felt her fingers touch cloth. She clutched at the piece of cloth and pulled it out, and when she first glimpsed the thing it finally occurred to her what the thing was.

"Oh, it's—" she exclaimed as she drew the thing out.

"It's your new super-suit!"


	10. The Heroine's Debut

**I want to give special thanks to the people who offered suggestions for what to name Aisling (the real Violet Parr, Maculata, marco2050, and RockSunner). The names I had thought of myself were "Flexibelle" and "Climactica", but I eliminated those in favor of one of the names that was suggested. **

A few days after the arrival of her super-suit, Aisling was lounging on the couch in the living room of the apartment. It was Friday, which meant that she didn't have any homework to do (her own or others peoples'), and she was watching TV contentedly until, much to her surprise, there was a knock at the door. Not bothering to turn the TV off, she got up and walked over to the door, scrutinizing it momentarily before opening it.

She opened the door a few inches and peered out, but as soon as she saw who was standing there she smiled and opened the door all the way.

"Hey! Come on in," she said, standing back from the doorway and ushering the guest inside.

The woman who stepped through the door had two names. One of them was Melissa Morgan, and the other was Cirrusoar. As Aisling closed the door and scurried over to the TV to turn it off, Melissa glanced around and said, a bit confusedly,

"So, Stephanie's not here?"

"Well, no," Aisling said, sounding just as confused as Melissa had. She looked at the clock; it was a few minutes past four. Melissa was Mom's closest friend, and knew perfectly well that Mom didn't come home until about five fifteen, so why was she even asking?

Melissa knitted her brow. "She called me yesterday and told me that she would come home early today. Hmm. . ." She shook herself a little, and then adopted a completely different facial affect, this one excited instead of perplexed. "So, you got your suit in the mail?"

Aisling smiled. "Yeah. You want to see?" Melissa nodded brightly.

As Melissa pulled off her coat and hat, Aisling made her way to the room she shared with Janie. Janie was sitting on her bed, as she always did in the afternoons, thoroughly engrossed in a book that Aisling couldn't see the title of. Janie looked up when Aisling came into the room.

"Who's here?" she asked.

"It's just Melissa," Aisling said as she retrieved the brown box from its perch on top of her chest of drawers.

"Is she here to see Mom?" Janie asked, the confusion that Aisling had felt evident in her voice.

Aisling shrugged her shoulders and carried the cardboard box back into the main area of the apartment, where Melissa was seated at the small dining table, twirling a strand of her hair. Her bright smile came back when Aisling placed the box on the table and pulled back the cardboard lips. Slipping her hand under the layer of tissue that obscured the contents of the box, Aisling withdrew her super-suit and laid it out on the table for Melissa to admire.

"Oh, what a beautiful color!" Melissa exclaimed, leaning forward and stroking the cloth of the suit. The color _was_ beautiful, an intense shade of cerulean that would look good when Aisling wore it while standing next to Stephanie, whose costume was an equally intense purple.

Aisling pulled out the smaller items from the bottom of the box and laid them out also. The accessories for her super-suit were all white, and like the bright blue body suit, they were accented with little gold curlicues.

"Have you tried it on yet?" Melissa asked, her fingers lingering over one of the small white gloves.

"Yeah. It looks pretty good on me."

Melissa turned her head and looked at the clock; it was four sixteen. "I wonder what's keeping her," she said, her puzzled expression returning.

"Did she say why she was coming home early?" Aisling asked.

"Yeah, but I'm not supposed to tell—"

Melissa was interrupted as the door flew open and Stephanie herself rushed in. She looked fairly frazzled, her face flushed and her hair a bit disorderly.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, addressing Melissa. "The traffic was bad. Hi, Doll," she said to Aisling.

"Mom, why are you home early?" Aisling asked, feeling vaguely as though she were being conspired against.

"I'll tell you in a minute. Just let me change my clothes," she looked at Melissa and raised one eyebrow, as if to ask a question.

"I changed already," she said in response to the unspoken question, smiling in a way that Aisling thought was clearly conspiratorial.

Stephanie went to her bedroom and closed the door, leaving Aisling to beg hints from Melissa.

"I don't get it. What's going on?"

Melissa didn't stop smiling. "Here's a hint. Go put on your suit," she said, nodding toward the pieces of clothing that were spread all over the table.

Aisling still didn't understand, but she didn't say anything. She gathered up the scattered bits of the suit and carried them back to the room where Janie was still sitting. Again, she looked up from her book when Aisling came in.

"What are you doing?" she asked as Aisling began to peel off her clothes.

"I'm putting on my suit," she answered, stepping into the shockingly blue garment.

"Why?"

"Melissa told me to."

"Oh."

Aisling sat on her own bed and pulled on the short boots, and then slipped the gloves on. Neither the gloves nor the boots followed the style that Aisling had seen other superheroines wear; they were shorter, with the boots coming only to the bottom of her calf muscles and the gloves coming only halfway to her elbows. She picked an elastic hair tie from her nightstand and gathered her hair in it, then put on the final piece of the suit, the white Zorro-type mask, and took a moment to admire herself in the long mirror on the back of the door. She grinned at her shiny-suited, glittery-accented self. Bell-Bell grinned too.

"It's cool," she said.

Aisling struck a heroic pose. "Yep," she said, then opened the door again and went back to the dining table, where Mom and Melissa were standing side-by-side, both wearing full-length coats, gloves, and tall boots. Aisling stared at them confusedly.

"I still don't get it," she said, desperate for a hint of what was going on.

"Just get your coat, Sweetie, and your boots and gloves. And you don't need the mask quite yet," Mom said, still wearing her cryptic smile.

Aisling did as she was asked, still thoroughly befogged (thanks, KungPowKitty). She stashed her sparkly mask in the pocket of her coat, then Mom declared that they were ready and went to talk to Bella-Jane. Aisling drifted along behind her. Janie was obviously just as confused as Aisling, because the first thing she said when Mom entered the room was,

"Mom, what's going on?"

Mom continued to smile conspiratorially and avoided the question. "We'll be back before dinnertime, okay, Sweetheart? You can stay by yourself that long, right?"

Bella-Jane nodded and said, "Yeah, but what's going on?"

"You'll find out pretty soon, Doll. Just sit tight, okay?"

"Okay."

"Alright, I guess we're ready," Melissa said from behind Aisling.

"Ready for _what_?" Aisling asked, a tiny edge of her agitation slipping into her voice.

"Come on, it's time to go," Mom said, ushering her adopted daughter and her friend out of the apartment. She locked the door, and then the three descended the four flights of stairs to the building's underground garage. Aisling was dying to know what was going on, but she decided not to ask again, lest she risk sounding whiny. She climbed into the back seat of Mom's car, and the two adults took their seats in the front. Nobody spoke as Mom guided the car out of the garage and into the busy street above, then drove a few blocks before parking the car in a shady alley. After stopping the car, Mom turned her head to look at Aisling, who had finally gotten an inkling of what was happening.

"You ready?" Mom asked, her eyebrows high on her forehead. Aisling swallowed nervously and nodded. Mom smiled more broadly. "Okay, let's do this."

Aisling stepped out of the car, and was surprised to find that, except for her face, she didn't feel at all cold. Perhaps the material of the super-suit was insulated somehow. Mom and Melissa were taking off their coats, boots, and gloves to reveal their own super-suits, so Aisling did the same. She also followed suit as they put their masks on and tossed their coats into the car. Mom then shut the car door without locking it.

"Wait, you're just going to leave it unlocked?" Aisling asked, somewhat alarmed. Mom shrugged.

"Well, no one's tried to steal the car before. It's fairly safe." Aisling wasn't convinced, but she kept her mouth shut.

"So. . . now what?" she asked.

"We fight crime," Melissa, or rather, Cirrusoar said. "But first we have to find some. It's not hard."

"To find it or to fight it?"

Melissa chose not to answer the question. "I'll be scanning the city from up there," she said, gesturing toward the sky.

"And we'll be down here," Mom said.

"Good luck, Aisling. I'm off!" Melissa said, and with a small leap she was in the air, gliding speedily toward the tops of the buildings, her arms thrust forward and her long, flax-colored hair streaming out behind her. She disappeared very quickly, obscured by the tall buildings.

"Come on, Darling, let's get started." Aisling gulped apprehensively.

"What if I completely mess this up?" she asked. Mom smiled warmly and put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"That won't happen, Sweetheart. I'll be right beside you the whole time."

Aisling felt her spirits lift a little. "Okay."

After exiting the alley by way of a very inconspicuous passage, the two emerged into a neglected courtyard, and from that courtyard they made their way into another alley, and then into another alley, and another, and another, until Aisling felt hopelessly lost. There were no signs of criminals or evildoers of any kind.

"Hmm, this place is quiet today. On a normal day, there are people hiding out in this labyrinth, trying to sell illegal goods."

"What kind of illegal goods?"

"Oh, you know, like—"

Before Mom could say what kind of illegal goods, Aisling heard a shriek that rose above all of the noise in the street that their current alley led into. It was a woman's shriek:

"He's got my purse!"

A split second later, a figure sped past the mouth of the alley; a figure with a balaclava over its head, gripping a green handbag.

Aisling didn't pause to think. She sprinted out of the alley and into the street, in fast pursuit the handbag thief. The man was fast, but every stride Aisling took was powered by her rubber-like bones, propelling her forward with speed that increased every moment. In a matter of seconds, she had caught up with the thief, rotated her right arm clockwise, and gotten a hold on the man's left forearm. The moment she caught hold of him, she whipped her arm back to its natural position. What happened next occurred so rapidly that it was scarcely detectable by the human eye. When Aisling rotated her arm counter-clockwise, the object of her grip rotated with it. That is, the man did a sort of involuntary summersault in midair, dropping the green purse in the process. He landed heavily on his stomach, let out a muffled "oof", and scrambled back onto his feet, but Aisling wasn't finished with him yet. As he started to run again, Aisling threw herself forward, propelled again by the spring-loaded nature of her rubber bones, and pounced on the man from behind, shoving him down. As he landed, he reached back to grab Aisling, but she got hold of his wrists in her own hands, and twisted her ultra-flexible arms around each other numerous times, taking the not-so-flexible arms of the thief with them. Having his limbs contorted in such a fashion was obviously painful, and as he screamed in agony Aisling heard the blare of sirens.

She turned her head unnaturally far to the left, just as two police cars stopped at the curb, their red and blue lights flashing. Two officers got out of each car, and one came forward with a pair of handcuffs. Aisling loosened her hold on the captive, unwinding her own arms so that the wrists of the thief were crossed only once. The officer clapped the handcuffs onto the man, and Aisling straightened up. The thief was forced into one of the cars, and the officer with the most medals of the bunch approached Aisling after studying her for a brief moment.

"So, who are you, anyway?" he asked, his long mustache flapping as he spoke.

"I'm Flexibend," she answered.

"She's my new sidekick," said a voice from behind Aisling. It was Mom, who gave Aisling a one-armed squeeze and a huge beaming smile. The officer raised his eyebrows and seemed to smile beneath his huge mustache.

"Well, how do you do?" he said, extending his hand. Aisling shook the proffered hand, and as she did, she heard applause. She let go of the officer's hand and glanced around. A fair-sized crowd had gathered, and among the onlookers was a middle-aged lady holding the green handbag that had been snatched by the thief. She, too, was beaming at Aisling.

"Thank you so much, young lady," she said.

"You're very welcome," Aisling replied, unable to think of something wittier to say.

"Well, welcome to Chicago's crime-fighting force, Miss Flexibend" said the mustached officer, giving Aisling a small salute before stepping into his patrol car.

Pivoting to face the crowd again, Aisling heard a few scattered cheers and approving whistles. She grinned and looked up at Mom.

"That was _fantastic,_ Darling."


	11. Edna Mode, and Guest

**Thanks for the reviews, once again. I had intended for the tenth chapter to feature Joaquin and Edna, but it seemed that no matter how many times I wrote it, it never turned out right, so I wrote about Aisling instead. When it came time to start writing this chapter, I realized that I couldn't put off the composition of this scene any longer, so I tried again. I hope it's alright. **

**Also, if you'd like to see more of a certain character, let me know, okay? All kinds of feedback are appreciated. **

As Joaquin was doing a bit of shading on one of the sketches that he worked on to pass the time between taking phone calls, one of Edna Mode's many security guards walked into his office room, tossed an envelope onto the desk, and said unnecessarily,

"You got a letter."

Joaquin waited until the man had left before examining the envelope. It was a letter from Aisling. He bit his lip apprehensively, wondering if the letter would be better off unopened. Aisling had sent him letters from Chicago twice before, but he hadn't answered either of them, and was afraid that he would have to answer this one. After staring at it for a minute, he ripped the left edge of the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of loose-leaf paper, which was covered front and back by Aisling's at-times illegible handwriting. He smiled as he read it, thinking that he had gotten lucky again, until he came to the last full paragraph. _Is living with Edna Mode any fun? _she had written, _I've heard that she's kind of eccentric._

When he read that, Joaquin gritted his teeth, not so much from anger as from discomfort. He knew that he would have to answer this letter; she had finally asked him a direct question about the state of his life. When Aisling had written to him before, as had Patrick and Vasilisa, she had explained details of her own life, and hadn't offered him anything to respond to. The three of them had talked about their wonderful new parents, their great new homes, their exciting new lives as normal children who went to school every day and came home to a loving family. Thinking about those details made him alternately feel depressed and bitter. He didn't have any wonderful new parents, a great place that felt like home, or an exciting new life as a normal teenager—all he had was a boring secretarial job and a mentor whom the word "eccentric" did not even begin to describe.

"Joaquin, Miss Mode wants to talk to you in the gallery room," another intruding guard said, poking his head into the room and making Joaquin jump out of his reverie.

"Oh, okay," he muttered, slipping the letter into one of his desk drawers before pulling himself up. He walked rather slowly to the gallery room, taking time to admire the shiny articles that sat in the numerous alcoves in the wall. He always walked to his audiences with Edna with something related to dread. As he entered the enormous, silvery bright room at the center of the building, he wished that he could turn his head and run his eyes over the vast frieze with the Greek warriors on it, but he knew that it was a bad idea to dawdle while he was within eyesight of his mentor, who was perched on one of the box-shaped chairs that were arranged in a square in the middle of the huge room. She looked much the same as she always did; slightly sour, with eyes that narrowed increasingly when Joaquin entered the room. Joaquin made an effort to keep his face expressionless as he walked up to her. As he approached, she hopped lightly off of her chair and sighed.

"Come, we will try this again," she said, the nasal nature of her voice making her "w"s sound like "v"s and "th"s sound like "z"s.

"Alright," Joaquin said indifferently, following the tiny figure of his mentor through a hallway and down a staircase, and then through another hallway, which had alcoves like the ones upstairs, but which were occupied by super-suited mannequins instead of shiny, exotic artifacts. At the end of the hallway there was a fortified door, and on the wall next to the door were a number of gadgets that acted as locks. She strode up to them, tapped in a code on the key-pad, pressed her hand against the fingerprinting device, pulled her spectacles down for a retinal scan, and then said her name in an overtly clear manner into the microphone. Immediately after she did, a panel in the ceiling whipped back to reveal a sinister-looking gun that promptly pointed itself at Joaquin's head. Joaquin didn't flinch at the appearance of the gun, though, only because he had watched this ritual many times before. Edna spoke into the microphone again, as if stating an afterthought:

". . . and guest."

The gun disappeared back into the ceiling.

The steel door opened, revealing a room that contrasted directly with the light and airy rooms above; it was the laboratory where the super-suits like the ones on the mannequins in the outside hallway were drawn out, created, and tested for durability. Joaquin watched dully as his diminutive mentor walked over to one of her cabinets and poked through its contents.

Edna didn't invite him to sit down (she never did), but he chose a chair and sat down anyway. As he watched her poke through the innards of her cabinet, his mind began to wander. He remembered that Aisling had said in her letter that she had discovered some great way to make money. He wondered what it was. As he was theorizing, his mentor came back, the limp shape of a suit draped across her arms. She tossed the thing into his lap, tilted her head, and asked sharply,

"What are the qualities of this material?"

Joaquin did all he could to stifle a sigh; this ritual was tiresome. Asking him to identify the abilities of certain fabrics was one of her most common demands, but he was hardly ever able to say what she seemed to want him to say. He did his best though, and took the limp suit into his hands, attempting to examine it.

"Well. . ." he began, rubbing a bit of the material between his thumb and index finger. "It's slick, so it's probably water-proof."

"All of my materials are water-proof, darling. Be more specific." She still had her eyes narrowed, as if she were a large housecat stalking a tiny, helpless insect. Joaquin grew a bit nervous under her gaze. He pulled on the fabric of the suit, and watched as it stretched like a piece of chewing gum.

"It's one of the fabrics that can stretch a lot and still keep its shape," he said as he released his hold on the stretched-out suit and it snapped back to its original size.

"Yes. What else?" Edna was still glaring at him through her spectacles, her eyes seeming to grow larger and narrower simultaneously. Joaquin swallowed hard, growing more nervous.

"It's, um, well. . ." he sputtered, and the look on Edna's face grew worse. Joaquin felt a drop of cold sweat run down the back of his neck. He imagined how odd this might look to an outside observer---a miniscule, graying lady with unfortunately thick spectacles intimidating an adolescent boy who was more than twice her size. Joaquin desperately groped for some bit of information that would satisfy his glaring mentor. "I, I think. . ."

"Do _not_ think!" she said, seeming to explode with frustration. She waved her arms in front of her face like an insane windmill, and Joaquin felt his hands begin to shake. "You are supposed to _know_! _Do not think!_" Then, as suddenly as she had exploded, she settled down again. "Very well, we will try something else."

She strode over to the broad glass case that she used when demonstrating the exploits of her products, and sat down in one of the chairs on the platform that slid back and forth in front of it. Joaquin sat down in the chair next to her, and at the touch of a button the door inside opened and a mannequin decked out in one of Edna's super-suits came forth. The thing moved very slowly to the right, and the moving platform followed it.

"Now," she said, turning toward Joaquin, "If this suit is meant to protect the wearer from lasers and other extremely concentrated forms of energy, and contains picofillaments, what materials must be present to compliment it?"

Joaquin bit his lip, calling on memories of her teaching him the advantages of various kinds of synthetic fibers. "Something larger than picofillaments. Ultrastrands, maybe."

He thought he had given a satisfactory answer, but, much to his horror, she blew up again.

"I tell you once, I tell you hundreds of times, _do not guess!_ You do not need to guess! You know these things, and you will show me that you do!"

Joaquin felt his hands begin to quiver again, and, completely against his will, he felt the beginnings of hot tears form in his eyes. He stared into his lap, not daring to respond.

"Go back upstairs," she said, the metal in her voice bringing the tears out of his eyes. He kept his gaze on the floor to keep her from seeing his shameful expression, and left the laboratory, breaking into a run as soon as the steel door closed behind him, more tears falling from his eyes as he ran back to his office room.

Several hours later, Joaquin was seated at his desk again, completing the shading on his sketch. He had been sent to this place to help the brilliant, famous, prestigious Edna Mode design super-suits, yet she wouldn't even let him near the lab by himself. Sometimes, he felt that he made up for it by making sketches like this one, of famous supers wearing his ideas for designs. He laid his cheek down on the desktop and continued to swish his pencil across the page, darkening the curves on the figure's cape. Just as he was coming to the end of a line, he heard someone in front of him clear their throat. He looked up sharply, and saw, right in front of his desk, his mentor. He adopted his expressionless face again, but noticed immediately that her whole facial affect was different. She didn't look nearly as sour as usual, and her eyes weren't narrowed at all. She looked up at Joaquin, and said,

"You _were_ right. It _was_ ultrastrands."

Joaquin blinked, surprised, and managed to mumble, "Oh, thank you."

After Joaquin had mumbled his thanks, something happened that changed the atmosphere of the room completely. In a fraction of a second, the relaxed aura in the room disappeared as Edna cast her eyes across the top of Joaquin's desk and caught sight of one particular item. No sooner had she seen it than she had snatched it up, leapt onto Joaquin's desk, and begun to shake it in front of his face, shouting like a madwoman.

"_WHAT IS THIS?_" she yelled, waving Joaquin's own drawing in front of his face. Joaquin was too shocked to do anything but lean as far back as possible in his chair while shielding his face with one hand. The yelling didn't stop.

"Do you even know what you have drawn" she demanded, holding the paper still now and jabbing her finger into it like a rapier. Joaquin still didn't say anything. The yelling didn't stop.

"Don't you remember Stratogale?"

_Stratogale. . . _He had definitely heard that name before, but he couldn't remember anything about her, except that Aisling had said that she had once collected pictures of her. As Joaquin sat there mutely, staring at the crazy woman whose face he suddenly had to look up into, she calmed down. Her arms fell to her sides, and a miffed but strangely defeated expression crossed her face.

"Well, I suppose not."

And, leaving Joaquin slightly stunned in his chair, she turned around, hopped off the desk, and walked smartly out of the room, the drawing still clutched in her left hand.


	12. Drawings and Interviews

**Okay, here are the personalized notes:**

**the real Violet Parr—your continual support means a lot to me. Thank you very much!**

**Marco2050—I'm always grateful for your encouragement. )**

**Trugeta—yep, I would agree that Edna has some serious issues. Thanks for the support!**

**KungPowKitty—thanks for all of your reviews and compliments! And please update your story; I really want to see what happens next!**

**Star AJT 84—I'm not quite sure what the point of that review was, but thanks anyway.**

**fanficfreak—thanks for the enthusiasm, and for the chapter title suggestion! Oh, and by the way, since your name has three "f"s in it, you should be "F-cubed", not "F-squared". **

**Maculata—thank you so much for the encouragement and for the name you gave Aisling! In return, I'm going to attempt to name Abby for you. Since, when thinking of her power, the only definitive phrase that comes to mind is "clear goop", why not call her Aspiclear, or something similar? Aspic is a sort of transparent gelatin, you see. Let me know if that works for you!**

**Oh, and for all of you who couldn't find the reason that Edna went berserk over the drawing, allow me to highlight a phrase for you: "Joaquin. . .continued to swish his pencil across the page, darkening the curves on the figure's cape." See? It's clearly there!**

Once she was back in her private rooms, sipping some green tea, Edna took a much closer look at the piece of paper that she had snatched off of Joaquin's desk. As she gazed at it, one thing became clear to her: Joaquin _did_ have talents, even if they didn't correspond with the ones that Miss Interpretation and Mr. Dicker had insisted that he had. It had been obvious from their first day together that he didn't have any kind of otherworldly intuition, but now it was plain that he had good instincts when it came to drawing super-suits, minus one detail, of course. Edna picked up a big eraser from the table beside her and gently began to rub away the lines of the cape. After the last traces of the cape were gone and she had brushed away the eraser debris, she examined the drawing again and nodded slowly to herself. Yes, indeed, Joaquin had proved to be useful after all. She grinned to herself, very cat-like, and made her way to her laboratory to start work on the suit right away. She simply _knew_ that Gigadash would love it.

Meanwhile, Aisling, fully decked out as Flexibend, was sitting next to Mom, as Wave Lady, in an antechamber at a news station, waiting to be interviewed for the first time. She pulled at the fingers of her gloves nervously, and tried to distract herself by examining the array of magazines that were on the coffee table in front of her. All of them seemed to feature superheroes, which, for some inexplicable reason, made her feel more nervous. She picked one up at random. It had a picture of the Incredibles on the cover; Ultraviolet, Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and Gigadash neatly lined up, and in large white letters at the bottom, the words "Defending the Capitol". She was about to open it and find out just what it was the team had done recently when a man in a spiffy black suit poked his head into the room and announced,

"Hey, we're ready for you."

Aisling drew herself up slowly, feeling as though her legs were made of wood. She walked rather shakily to the door, then turned back to get a reassuring look from Mom. She got it. Mom smiled and asked,

"Remember what you're going to say?"

Aisling nodded.

"Go on—you'll do fine!"

Aisling gulped, and turned to follow the man in the suit. She felt her hands begin to sweat inside her gloves. As she was ushered to her seat in front of the camera, she said to herself: _It's going to be okay, you know what they're going to ask you, and you prepared your answers, and even if you mess up, Mom and Joaquin and Vasilisa and Patrick and Bell-Bell won't care. . . right?_

**Okay, I have some news for my faithful readers. Even though you all seem to be enjoying the story, I'm going to discontinue it. **

**But why, you ask, would I discontinue this story when I haven't gotten a single bit of negative feedback regarding it? The answer is that although the story seemed to please everyone who read it (or reviewed it, anyway), it wasn't going in the direction that I wanted it to go. For example, for the sake of the flow, I felt that I had to forfeit certain scenes that I had really been looking forward to putting in, such as the scene where the police search Aisling's bag and find some rather unusual things, the scene where the older Violet and Dash are introduced to the readers at an NSA picnic, and the scene in which the mysterious scarred man sings Simon and Garfunkel songs to himself while staring out a grimy window and having flashbacks. Also, the fact the story was so impossibly unrealistic became a bit off-putting for me after a while. And, well, I didn't feel that I was doing the standing characters any justice. **

**Well, anyway, as you all probably know, this was my first attempt at fanfiction. Since it seems to me that first-time writers often can't finish their stories, I don't feel that awkward. But, in any case, I'll stick around and keep reading peoples' stories, and I have some more ideas in store, so I should be back!**


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